The Western Wall

A sheer wall of pale limestone blocks, some weighing many tons, rises above a broad plaza in Jerusalem's Old City. The Western Wall, HaKotel HaMa'aravi in Hebrew, is a section of the retaining wall King Herod built around the Temple Mount, and for Jews it is the holiest place where prayer is customarily held, the closest accessible point to the site of the ancient Temples. Worshippers pray here day and night, celebrate bar mitzvahs, and tuck handwritten prayers into the cracks between the stones. Muslims call it the al-Buraq Wall, after the winged steed that, in Islamic tradition, carried the Prophet Muhammad on his Night Journey and was tethered here.

The wall runs about 488 meters along the western side of the Temple Mount, but only about 57 meters face the open prayer plaza, where the stones rise roughly 19 meters above the paving and more courses lie buried below. The plaza's prayer area is divided by a partition into a larger men's section and a women's section, and an egalitarian prayer platform lies to the south at Robinson's Arch. To the north, the Western Wall Tunnels follow the hidden length of the wall beneath the Muslim Quarter, revealing Herodian ashlars weighing hundreds of tonnes. The lowest visible courses date from Herod's work beginning around 19 BCE, while the smaller stones of the upper rows were added in later centuries. The plaza is open to visitors of every faith at all hours.

Jews prayed at the wall for centuries after the Second Temple's destruction in 70 CE, for most of that time in a narrow alley under Mamluk, Ottoman, and then British rule. A 1929 dispute over worship arrangements here preceded deadly riots across Mandatory Palestine. From 1948 to 1967 the Old City was held by Jordan, and Israelis could not reach the wall. After capturing East Jerusalem in 1967, Israel demolished the adjoining Mughrabi Quarter to create today's plaza. The Western Wall Heritage Foundation, an Israeli government body, now administers the site, while Muslim and Palestinian authorities regard the wall as part of al-Aqsa and Waqf property. Rules on women's prayer and mixed services remain a long-running dispute within Israel, and the plaza draws millions of visitors a year.

• Israel
  A small, contested homeland on the eastern Mediterranean administered by
• The Roman Empire
  The Mediterranean state whose roads, law and Latin still shape three continents built under Roman client rule
• The Ottoman Empire
  Six centuries of rule from Istanbul over the Balkans, Anatolia, the Arab world and North Africa formerly ruled by
• Jerusalem
  An ancient holy city sacred to three faiths located in
• The Church of the Holy Sepulchre
  The Jerusalem church over the places Christians venerate as the crucifixion and tomb of Jesus nearby holy site
• The Temple Mount (Haram al-Sharif)
  The walled platform in Jerusalem's Old City, holy to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif retaining wall of